Guide · October 27, 2026

Shopify’s automated filing is ending. What to do before January.

Shopify’s automated sales tax filing covers sales through December 31, 2026. The returns for December, due in January 2027, are the last it files; from the January period you file yourself or through a service. Shopify Tax keeps calculating tax at checkout, your records stay downloadable until April 30, 2027, and no new store can enrol. Before the first return you file, check three things: that you can sign in to every state you are registered in, which returns Shopify actually filed, and whether marketplace orders were ever on them.

What ends, and what does not

Two things have always been separate. Shopify Tax works out the tax at checkout and collects it from the customer. That continues. Automated filing took what was collected, prepared each state’s return and paid it from your account. That ends with the December 2026 period. The money you collect in January is still tax you owe a state, and from January the return that reports it is yours.

The registrations were always yours: each state account is in your company’s name, not Shopify’s. What changes is who signs in to it on the due date.

Before January, in this order

1. 1

   Download every return and payment confirmation.

   Shopify keeps the records until April 30, 2027 and then they are gone. A state can ask about a return years later. Take all of it now: each return as filed, each payment, each state’s confirmation number.

2. 2

   List the states, the frequencies and the logins.

   For every state Shopify filed in, write down the account number, whether it files monthly, quarterly or annually, and sign in to the state’s portal yourself. A login nobody at the company has used is the first thing to go wrong in January.

3. 3

   Check what was actually filed.

   Put the orders beside the returns, state by state and month by month. The things to look for: a state that collected tax at checkout but never appeared on a return, a marketplace’s orders reported as your own, and a return filed where nothing was owed. The free check does this from your Shopify export and the marketplaces’ own records.

4. 4

   Decide who files from January.

   Yourself, on each portal, which is fine for two or three states. A service, of which Shopify names Numeral and Zamp. Or Pursor, which files only when what was collected, booked, filed and paid agree with each other, and books every return in your ledger.

5. 5

   Do not file December twice.

   Shopify files the December period. Your first return is January’s for a monthly state, and the first quarter of 2027 for a quarterly one. A second December return, filed by you or a new provider, is the most common handover mistake.

The thing to look for in the records

If you also sell on Amazon, Walmart or TikTok Shop, the marketplace collects and remits the tax on those orders itself. Your return should report those sales and take them off again. If the orders reached your filing with their tax still on them, the tax was paid twice: once by the marketplace and once by you. It is the single largest finding the check makes, and it is recoverable.

From January, what a good return looks like

Four figures agree before anything is filed: the tax collected on the sale, the tax booked in the ledger, the tax on the return, and the state’s debit on the bank. When they do, the return cannot be argued with. When they do not, someone finds out why before the due date, not when a notice arrives. That is what Pursor does, and it is why the check comes first: it tells you where you are starting from.

Questions people ask

When does Shopify stop filing sales tax?

After the returns for December 2026, which are due in January 2027. A quarterly state’s last return covers the quarter that ends in December; New York’s covers December 2026 to February 2027. Anything for a period starting January 1, 2027 is yours to file.

Does Shopify Tax stop calculating tax at checkout?

No. Shopify Tax keeps calculating and collecting tax on your orders. Only the filing of the returns ends. The tax you collect from January still has to be reported and paid to each state by someone.

Can I still enrol in Shopify’s automated filing?

No. Enrolment closed to new stores before the service ends. A store not already enrolled files its own returns now.

Who does Shopify recommend instead?

Shopify names Numeral ($50 a return for one year) and Zamp (three months free if you sign by January 31, 2027, then a per-state monthly fee) as hand-offs, and says you do not need to use either. There is no official partner.

Do I still file in states where Amazon or TikTok collect the tax for me?

In most states where you are registered, yes. The marketplace remits its own tax, and you file a return that reports the sales with the marketplace’s share taken off, often to a nil liability. Those nil returns are the ones most often filed wrong, and a machine should be filing them.